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Context

The Beauties and Furies is central to Christina Stead's
position as a significant writer of the Modernist period. Set in
Paris in 1934, it depicts a haunting metropolis, peopled, as one
character remarks, with “many beauties – and furies.” Underpinned
by a critique of commodity capitalism, the socialist characters
appear ultimately self-serving. Stead weaves her Marxism and her
feminism together, so that the economic content has everything to
do with the novel's discussion of female beauty and romantic
idealism.

The novel centres around Elvira Western, who, at the opening of
the text, has left her doctor husband, Paul, in Mecklenburgh
Square, Bloomsbury and is on the train to Paris to join her lover,
Oliver Fenton, a …

Citation:
Snaith, Anna. "The Beauties and Furies". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001
[https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1511, accessed 26 September 2017.]

1511The Beauties and Furies3Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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